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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28441443">and if my wishes came true</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/nineteen95/pseuds/nineteen95'>nineteen95</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Teen Wolf (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Canon Compliant, Episode: s03e12 Lunar Ellipse, F/F, Femslash, First Time, Lydia-centric, Pining, discovering sexuality</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 21:21:10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>10,340</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28441443</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/nineteen95/pseuds/nineteen95</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Stay at my place tonight.” Lydia blurts, too aware of the heat of Cora stepping into her space again. She slips a dry palm over the curve of Lydia's shoulder, sliding up to rest against the nape of her neck. Lydia’s seen her brother do it the boys over and over again, tactile in a way you wouldn’t expect from Derek Hale. Cora’s fingers flex lightly. It makes her hot all over.</p><p>“Yeah, okay.” Cora replies, like it’s easy as anything and not completely out of left-field. Does Cora even recognize what she’s offering right now? Lydia doesn’t even know what the offer in question <i>is</i>, just that she <i>wants</i>. </p><p>(Or: Cora and Lydia in the aftermath of <i>Lunar Ellipse</i>.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Cora Hale/Lydia Martin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>42</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>and if my wishes came true</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Warnings in order of importance (maybe) </p><p>1: exploration of the long term consequences of one character's restrictive eating disorder. this includes a level of unreliability, body dysmorphia, body image issues. this also includes the character trying to employ some of her therapy tactics to Cope. </p><p>2: the briefest mention of past sexual experiences that are construed as coercive. the narrator does not think too hard about the implications of those experiences.</p><p>3: this shit complies w s3 canon so do with that what u will </p><p>4: gratuitous allusions to taylor swift idk baby pls dont @ me</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It’s Cora Hale that makes Lydia question everything.</p><p>Something about the abject disrespect, the caged way that she holds herself, or maybe the genuine idiocy displayed when she whole-heartedly asked if Lydia <em>knew any spirits</em>, for god’s sake. It's that full, full mouth that Lydia can’t stop looking at, makes her wonder if her lips really are as soft as they look. And looks like Derek. She <em>behaves </em>like Derek, and Lydia is well aware that Derek Hale is attractive, and he is, he <em>is </em>attractive, but Cora—</p><p>Cora Hale is something else entirely, and it unmoors her. Lydia hates her for it, vicious in the need to protect herself. She throws Jackson under the bus to justify Aiden’s recurring presence in her life and, she knows it's wrong, that she shouldn't be associating with him but it's easy to use Jackson, the boy she loved (and she did, she <em>does</em>) to... set a boundary, maybe. Lydia doesn’t really know. All she knows is that at the time, when Cora had her pinned beneath the judgmental arch of her eyebrow and the quirk of that mouth, it made sense. It made <em>sense</em>.</p><p>And yet.</p><p>They’re at the veterinary clinic and Ethan and Aiden stretched over two examination tables in a sterilized room, clammy and washed-out looking. At some point, Aiden becomes lucid and rolls his head up in her direction, smiles up at her and says something inane about how he knew that she liked him. But how is Lydia supposed to unlearn how it felt when Cora had fallen to her knees beside her? Or how the hand on her back pulled Lydia back into her body, helped her settle back in her skin through the ringing in her ears?</p><p>Cora Hale has been chipping away at Lydia’s walls since her arrival in Beacon Hills and Lydia is wrecked, <em>wrecked</em>, because it was so <em>easy </em>to let all the other boys slip inside her but for some reason, it’s this girl's voice filling her up that breaks the last of her walls down, the final blow coming from the crack in Cora's voice as Lydia’s name fell from her lips, leading her out of the loft and promising her, desperately, that <em>we can get help, but we can’t stay here.</em></p><p><em>We</em>, like Cora was going to scoop her up and save her from—she doesn’t <em>know</em>, but god, Lydia wants her bad, wants her more than she’s ever wanted another person in her life.</p><p>And it’s that realization that does her in, giving much too easily under the fatigue of the entire day and the weight of her convictions that Lydia acknowledges it head on. That there's something missing from the parts she used to build herself back up. And that it's probably been missing longer than she realized.</p><p>Lydia smiles at him (he’s probably not a bad guy, not really) and runs a hand over his forehead until Aiden’s breath evens out. Lydia lets her shoulders relax. Next to her, Cora sighs, and it paralyzes Lydia, the thought that Cora might leave now that she doesn't have a reason to stay.</p><p>“Stay at my place tonight.” Lydia blurts, jumping slightly when Cora steps into her space again, slips a palm over the curve of Lydia's shoulder, sliding up to rest against the nape of her neck. Lydia’s seen her brother do it the boys over and over again, tactile in a way no one would expect from Derek Hale. Cora’s fingers flex lightly and her breath hitches. It makes her hot all over.</p><p>Against her will, Lydia’s eyes flutter shut under her touch. When she glances up, Cora’s eyebrows are raised high on her forehead and she's just looking at her, head tipped ever so slightly. Watching. Lydia swallows around the lump in her throat and it’s so viscerally uncomfortable to look her in the eye— but.</p><p>Cora’s head tips further, ever-so slightly, ever-so slowly to the side; her posture softens almost imperceptibly and that’s—everything. The hand on her neck slips down slightly, a nascent sort of caress, and goosebumps erupt down Lydia’s spine.</p><p>“Yeah, okay.” Cora says, like it’s easy as anything and not completely out of left-field. Does Cora even recognize what she’s offering right now? Lydia doesn’t even know what the offer in question <em>is, </em>just that she <em>wants</em>. </p><p>Cora’s mouth twists into a frown so abruptly that it yanks Lydia out of her head. “I just have to grab some stuff from—” A grimace. </p><p>Lydia gets it. She doesn’t want to go back there, either.</p><p>“I have stuff.” She’s so out of her depth right now and none of this is appropriate, holy hell. “I mean— I don’t want to be alone right now.” </p><p>She flushes deeply as soon as the words leave her mouth, feels the heat of it burning hot in her ears, down her face and neck. Lydia swears, swears on her <em>life</em> that she can feel the moment that something in Cora shifts, like something in Lydia's posture piqued the wolf's interest. There's a glint in her eye as Cora's gaze becomes slightly predatory, assessing. It takes everything that Lydia’s made of to keep herself from fidgeting, or snapping back something nasty at her. Fight or flight.</p><p>But then she softens, her shoulders relaxing as her lips curve into a smile that so gentle it tugs something in her chest. “Sure." Cora says, "let’s go.”</p><p>And that’s that.</p><hr/><p>Everything is fine until Lydia has to watch Cora cross the threshold of her front-door and scrutinize her living room with absolutely nothing written on her face.</p><p>In the closed-off sterility of the veterinarian’s office, the idea of making small talk with Cora after everything felt so much simpler and Lydia can’t figure out why it suddenly feels so different and awkward now. It’s just that— Lydia didn’t realize how <em>wrong </em>she was expecting Cora to look against the backdrop of her home, this unbelievable girl versus the normalcy of her mother’s house, doilies and all. It deranges something in Lydia, settles uncomfortably in her chest as she watches how natural it is for Cora to unlace her boots and line them up against the wall beside her favourite pair of kitten heels.</p><p>But then again, she recalls as Cora follows her up the staircase to her room on silent footsteps, the Hale house used to be huge. Grand. In her dreams, her hallucinations, the walls were painted warmly and the rooms were bathed in the sunlight streaming through projection windows. An open-concept main floor, a lived-in kitchen littered with spiral notebooks and index cards containing recipes that stretched into a living room sectioned off with sofa and a TV above a fireplace flanked by double stacked bookcases. Photos lining the walls, siblings and cousins, aunts and nephews. Laughter echoing from the backyard, from the depths of the preserve, child and adult, human and shifter. </p><p>Cora’s uncle ripped away everything that kept Lydia sane and then replaced it with unknowable horrors. He shattered the manacles keeping her neuroses bound and filled the void with the cries and laughter of people that didn’t belong to her.</p><p>And it’s the laughter that keeps her up at night, that pushes her to the edge of her limits, speeding down the street to Allison’s apartment in the dead of night to just to get away. All that had belonged to Cora, so why would anything in her mom’s living room surprise her? Swallowing against the sickness rising in her, she cracks open the door of her bedroom and ushers Cora inside.</p><p>They probably stood in the most awkward silence Lydia’s ever participated in, and god, it’s so—</p><p>“This is weird.” Cora’s voice cuts through the tension like a blade and Lydia can’t help herself. It’s just—between the sentient trees and eldritch monsters; the supernatural turf wars and supernatural war criminals—<em>god</em>.</p><p>The laughter bubbles out of her unbidden, unstable and high pitched. Lydia laughs and laughs and laughs, choking on her own spit when she tries to stop herself from snorting and <em>that’s </em>what pushes Cora over the edge with a hand slapping over her own mouth like she can muffle peel of laughter disguised as an ear-splitting shriek and— hey, that’s supposed to be her thing, isn’t <em>that </em>funny. Lydia’s hysteria gains a second wind.</p><p>For a moment, when Cora's hands land on her forearms like she needs Lydia to hold her up, it’s easy for Lydia to imagine that they could be anyone. Just two girls on the precipice of something more. Or maybe that’s just her.</p><p>And then the blare of her alarm ringing shatters the illusion and brings her abruptly back to reality, killing the laughter in her chest. Sober now, Lydia loosens her hold on Cora's arms, coughing slightly to clear her throat and walking over the desk to clear the notification that reads <em>meal 3, </em>the one that reminds her that she can't do the simple things without being a big to-do. Stealing herself, Lydia flips her phone over, screen-side down on and turns to face Cora—who looks confused and a little lost, but Lydia ignores it.</p><p>“Yeah, it is weird,” she soldiers on, leaving no room for questions. She needs to eat. “What do you want for dinner?”</p><p>Cora shakes her head, and her shoulders loosen again but there's some lingering suspicion in the way she watches Lydia now. It’s ridiculous how much that soothes her, the familiarity of it all even in the short time they've known each other.</p><p>“I’ll order something.” Cora suggests.</p><p>Lydia rolls her eyes because it’s expected, but she’s trying to cover for the old anxiety that’s slowly killing her appetite. She reaches into her dresser to grab her some night clothes and a spare toothbrush for her, mostly as an excuse to hide her face, and improvises.</p><p>“Okay, fine,” she says, “but I’m picking the place.” </p><p>Lydia doesn’t have to turn around to feel Cora rolling her eyes. </p><p>She offers her a couple towels. “You can take the shower first, if you want.”</p><p>They ended up ordering from the family owned phở place on the east end that always seemed so out of place in a town like Beacon Hills. Cora agrees to her suggestion because she’s craving tripe and spring rolls, and Lydia just wants a safe compromise. After tonight (after this year, if she’s being honest with herself) Lydia wants comfort food—something to soothe the soul. But she's also self-aware enough to recognize that it's paradoxically filling, covering her bases without having to think too hard.</p><p>She’s ordered from here enough times with Jackson that the unknown variables of eating out doesn’t fill her with dread.</p><p>All at once she misses him, because for all their flaws and secrets and lies, Jackson was her first friend. Jackson, who would arrive with her phở ga, extra small, with a side of summer rolls and resolutely <em>not</em> comment about the meticulous notes quietly logged in her journal. Jackson, who always just went about his business, reheating his noodles or something until the journal snapped shut and he returned to the table. The one she learned to use to divert her fixations into the accountability she needed to make sure she was eating enough. The one she used so that she had an outlet out of the endless cycle of rumination, and just because it made her happy to doodle little drawings of her favourite meals. It was the little things.</p><p>The two of them, they had a lot of things that they didn’t talk about. Her quirks, his lack of interest in sex, the unspoken agreement of playing up the amount of sex they had in their social circles. </p><p>She can’t whip out her diary with Cora here. She can’t even do it around <em>Allison</em>. And normally that would be fine but right now? Lydia needs to hide and heal.</p><p>She shakes the foreign thought out of her head. She just needs to regroup.</p><p>Cora grabs the door (“I’m not going to run into your parents, right?” “No, my mom has a date tonight.”) when the delivery person arrives and Lydia sets off to the kitchen in search of the deep soup bowls and the half empty bottle of sriracha to bring back up to her bedroom. She can hear Cora talking to the delivery person as she makes her way up the stairs, and it’s surprising how different she sounds when she’s—Lydia doesn’t know, pretending to be a regular person in regular society?</p><p>Quickly, Lydia takes stock of her room, stalling at the mess of her desk, cluttered with some old relapse plans she dug out of a binder, a declension chart she was working on to brush up on her Latin and a couple of poorly graded tests. Some are blank— tests that Lydia didn’t remember sitting in for, apparently having signed her name and only her name before it was collected. Others are just—cold written, tests she wasn’t aware of, the material nowhere to be found in clutter of memories that weren’t her own. That was the first semester she didn’t make honour roll. The hit to her GPA was the final bullet that shattered what remained of the wreckage Peter made of her coping mechanisms and god, it's just not fair. </p><p>Cora returns just as Lydia’s clearing the desk and cramming all the papers into the overstuffed drawer.</p><p>“How old are you, again?” Lydia asks suddenly. Beacon Hills is tiny and most of them that start kindergarten together end up crossing the stage together. It was a familiarity that disrupted the boundaries of their contrived social groups. Small town kids had the privilege of witnessing each other grow into their acne and out of their friends.</p><p>That’s what made it so easy for everyone to write her off this year, she thinks meanly. The precedent was already there, born in eighth grade when Lydia collapsed in phys-ed under the weight of her expectations and obsessions, the standard issue gym shirt hanging too large over her brittle frame.</p><p>She spent the next seven months in residential care, where she learned how to cope and eat like a normal person, how to work with her obsessions until they were made smaller. How to stop herself from screaming until her throat bled because no one was <em>listening to her</em>.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>She turns around and Cora is just… there. Looking at her like she’s an idiot. She has two white plastic bags tied off tightly clutched in each hand, and Lydia takes them from her to set on the desk before dragging the stool from her vanity over to stand next to her office chair. The comforting scent of the broth fills the room—the warmth of star anise and cinnamon and the soft bite of cilantro. A deep inhale makes Lydia homesick, reminiscent of a time when her parents tolerated each other and still had an interest in taking her to all their college haunts. Before Lydia’s issues nailed the coffin of their marriage shut.</p><p>Lydia takes the stool, spinning around to watch Cora settle down and slice down the plastic bag with one protracted claw, so strikingly mundane when Lydia's so accustomed to bloodshed.</p><p>“I can’t remember going to school with you.” Lydia explains.</p><p>Her psychiatrist suggested that her parents should pull Lydia out of school for the rest of the year she could focus on recovering. She remembers staring hard at the floor, fiddling with the white hospital band around her bony wrist. Natalie held her hand and agreed and Lydia just wanted to disappear.</p><p>“You guys are dumb.” Cora says around a mouthful of rice noodles. “I’m seventeen, but I went to the Spanish immersion school in Beacon Valley for elementary. Derek went there too, then BHHS for secondary,” her eyelids flicker; she clears her throat a little. “But yeah.”</p><p>Lydia nods her head, but her thoughts are racing. How many Hales were there, again? There had been another sister, older than Derek— Laura, she remembers suddenly, the thought landing like a kick to the chest. She thinks Laura might have volunteered at the library where Lydia’s reading buddies program was held, back when Natalie still took her to those things.  </p><p>The Hales were a permanent fixture on the outskirts of Beacon Hills, but their presence was carved into the bones of the town; their presence was felt in the libraries and the schools and hospital wings and god knows where else. Hales were strange, but well-mannered, at least according to her mother. The entire family (the <em>pack</em>, holy hell) had always been easy to identify wherever they were in town. Hales were tall and broad, regardless of the parent that birthed them. The children were close in age, dark haired and sharp featured with complexions ranging from Talia Hale’s light olive tones to the deep umber of her wife (<em>Maya</em>, an old memory of Peter’s supplies, a voice that sounds nothing like the one from her nightmares.)</p><p>It was always easy to single them out. The Hales were striking and they never went anywhere alone.</p><p>Lydia aches.</p><p>”I’m seventeen too.” Lydia adds. Cora raises her eyebrows. Lydia stares, daring her to say something.</p><p>Seventeen. Cora was born in the same year as her. They would have been in the same grade. </p><p>Except.</p><p>Lydia started ninth grade a year behind her original cohort with no friends and her chin held stubbornly high<em>. </em>If Cora would have been in her original high school cohort, Lydia would have started high school behind the curve and her old classmates would have filled in the blanks with all the things she didn’t want Cora to know. When all Lydia wanted was to be <em>normal</em>.</p><p>Cora doesn’t respond, her lips and eyebrows tilting in careless acceptance. She looks so much like her brother in instant, even with the lifetime of forgotten mannerisms.</p><p>Funny how things work out.</p><hr/><p>“Should you call your brother?”</p><p>“In the morning.” Cora rubs some of Lydia’s moisturizer on her cheeks and around her mouth. She has dry skin, and for some reason, Lydia finds it deeply unsettling that Cora Hale seems reluctantly impressed with her PM skincare routine. “He’s okay.”</p><p>Lydia is dubious. “How could you possibly know that?”</p><p>Cora shrugs and Lydia watches her rub her the top of her chest briefly in the mirror, eyes drawn to the barely-there divot caused by lightly defined pectorals. Lydia associates that type of definition with—men. She’s never seen it on a woman before and it’s—</p><p>It might have been a mistake to give Cora an old pair of Jackson’s boxers and a thread-bare tank. Lydia gets stuck, staring hard at the swell of her quads, the well-defined calves, the perkiness of her ass. It’s taking everything in her power to not gape at her, mouth slack and stupid like <em>Stiles,</em> for god’s sake. </p><p>But she is so gorgeous, something Lydia was always dimly aware of, but Lydia has never had the opportunity to really <em>look</em> at her before.</p><p>Cora turns around, leaning against the bathroom sink while scrolling through her phone and for some reason, that vantage point pokes at the sleeping bear of her obsessions. Because Cora’s body is a <em>good </em>body, evident in the smooth, <em>flat </em>plane of her stomach, emphasized by that same tank-top. Even with the glimpse Lydia caught of the soft ridges of her abdomen and the oblique line of muscle cutting across her hips like Jackson’s had.</p><p>Suddenly, the softness of her own belly pushes loudly against the flimsy material of her t-shirt. She was reclining against the headboard on her usual side of the bed, the one farthest from the window, but her position feels contrived now. It becomes a monumental effort to keep her hands in her lap, aimless scrolling through her iTunes library. Anything to avoid crossing them over her chest and hiding the way her breasts lose their shape without the support of an underwire. Or over her own hips, the deep, chubby divots so bitterly exaggerated next to the knife points of Cora’s and <em>god, </em>she feels naked in her pajamas and Cora’s going to <em>see her—</em></p><p>Lydia takes a deep breath, counts multiples of fours until her head quiets. A compromise. She needs to compromise with herself.</p><p>She is enough. Lydia <em>knows </em>that she is enough, and she’s worked too goddamn hard to get to the point where she could recognize that. But Cora is something else, something uncharted, and Lydia doesn’t do well with surprises. Lydia wants her, but she thinks that ugly, jealous part of her (the part that needs control more than it needs to breathe) wants to be Cora. More than all those things combined, Lydia wants Cora to want her <em>back</em>.</p><p>And none of those are Cora’s fault. Lydia shuts her eyes.</p><p>“What’s wrong with you?”</p><p>“What?” Lydia shakes herself out of the trance only to realize that Cora has an eyebrow arched in her direction.</p><p>“You smell like you’re having a crisis.” Cora says, gesturing vaguely in her direction.</p><p>Lydia bristles, slouches down and tucks the duvet under her chin protectively. “How are you <em>not </em>having a crisis?”</p><p>Cora shrugs. Her hair is still damp from the shower, tucked tightly behind her ears when she steps back into the room, closing the bathroom door behind her.</p><p>“Are you sure you want me to sleep here?”</p><p>In the short time Lydia’s known her, she’s never once seen Cora look so thoroughly awkward. She looks her age, for once. Cora gestures to the L-shape couch perched against the north-facing wall. “Seriously, I can crash on the couch.”</p><p>“The couch is murder on your back,” says Lydia. It comes off a lot calmer than she feels but she means it. Wants it. “But if you’d rather sleep there then that’s okay.”</p><p>Cora tucks her lip between her teeth and Lydia knows she’s staring at it like an idiot, but she’s so tired. Gingerly, Cora sits on the left side of the mattress, nodding her head.</p><p>Maybe she’s tired too.</p><hr/><p>Of course, real life comes knocking and shatters the illusion again.</p><p>Lydia busies herself with breaking down the Styrofoam containers and tying them off in the grocery bag they came in when Cora’s head whips toward the far corner of her room, her carotid straining tight against the thin skin of her throat.</p><p>“What?” Lydia asks, fear gripping her heart. “What’s wrong?”</p><p>“Someone’s here.” Cora says distractedly, and her head tilts, focusing.</p><p>On cue, the garage door opens, the noise coming from the direction that initially drew Cora’s attention. Lydia’s hands clench into fists around the plastic bag, trying to curb the new, foreign <em>normal </em>panic cresting in her throat.</p><p>Cora looks at her like she’s a moron, the predatory posture melting back into her usual self. “Just tell her you have a friend over?”</p><p>Lydia stares at her. “We’re not friends.”</p><p>And it’s true: they aren’t friends. Lydia doesn’t know what they are but the feeling welling up her feels something like possessiveness. Territorial. Because if Lydia says she has a friend over, her mom will want to <em>meet </em>Cora. And that’s—not in this lifetime, over her dead body. Cora would probably sooner pitch herself out Lydia’s window before making small-talk with her <em>mother</em>. Maybe. Anyway, she isn’t ready to share this part of Cora with anyone, like the exposure might douse the brittle fire glowing between them.</p><p>Everything is so simple when it’s the two of them. Lydia won’t throw that away.</p><p>Cora raises her eyebrows, but she doesn’t look hurt. She also doesn’t look surprised. “Like this isn’t the first time you’ve lied to her,” she says.</p><p>She’s <em>assessing </em>her, the hairs on Lydia’s neck standing at the realization. Like a cat toying with a mouse. “Why are you acting like you’re about to get caught sneaking a guy in your room?”</p><p>Yeah, Lydia has no explanation for that.</p><hr/><p>Lydia didn’t have a lot of friends growing up. Back when she was younger, before she learned the type of civility she needed to survive in school, she was abrasive. Smarter than her classmates and mean about it. That type of cruelty wasn’t socially acceptable, not like the dumb bitch attitude she molded the ugly parts of herself into. She turned her loneliness into something deliberate. A choice. </p><p>So, she didn’t grow up having birthday sleepovers with the girls in her classes. She wasn’t ever going to be invited to those. Not when she kept finishing her tests first, her teachers kept putting her name up on the goddamn student award board and gifting her useless little trinkets every month as a reward. </p><p>And then Allison came along and she was <em>new</em>, she didn’t <em>know </em>Lydia, so she sunk her claws into her before anyone else could poach her first. </p><p>Allison taught her how to be normal in a way Lydia couldn’t fathom— and that included sleepover etiquette, when Allison decided Lydia was too tired to drive and later when Lydia started spiralling again and she couldn’t be alone. </p><p>Still. Lydia might not understand how girls have sleepovers, but she knows enough to get that the heat of Cora’s skin next to her shouldn’t be stoking this <em>thing</em> burning within her. </p><p>“This place doesn’t feel right.” Cora says suddenly. </p><p>They’ve been in bed for some time, passing through that weird sleepover phase where neither of them are thumbing through their cell phones— or her iPod touch, in Lydia’s case, anymore. Lydia’s done this a thousand times over with Allison, both of them done gossiping for the night before they roll over away from each other waiting for sleep to capture them both. </p><p>That is not what’s happening here. Where with Allison it’s easy between them, every breath Lydia takes feels obtrusive, like it will be enough to shatter this nascent thing hanging between her and Cora. The space between them can’t be more than a few ones but to Lydia it feels like a canyon and being buried alive. </p><p>Lydia doesn’t even know what she wants at this point, all she knows is that she <em>does. </em> </p><p>“What do you mean?” </p><p>“It’s like,” her hand comes up, gesturing through the air and distracting Lydia with her fine wrist bones and muscled forearms. She licks her lips. </p><p>“I wouldn’t have noticed if I never left, but the air here is— wrong,” she gestures sharply. “It’s too hot.” there’s the rustling of fabric, like she’s shaking her head. “It smells potential. Like the air before a lightning storm.”</p><p>Lydia doesn’t know to reply to that. She’s lived here her entire life. Beacon Hills raised her and it seemed equally determined to break her too. </p><p>“Can’t you feel it?” Cora asks, something like desperation colouring her voice. </p><p>“Maybe it’s because of the nemeton?” Lydia offers. “Like with the sacrifices?”</p><p>“Shouldn’t it have gotten worse with what Stiles and the others did?”</p><p>Cora trusts her. Cora thinks she’s a stupid teenager—that they’re all stupid teenagers— but she’s here nodding her head like there’s some kind of merit to Lydia’s presumption even though she’s the one that knows the <em>least</em>. Cora Hale trusts her judgement enough to build on input. Allison is the only other person who— who— </p><p>Lydia shakes her head. “Did the smell get worse after? Or stronger?”</p><p>“No.” Cora says. Her fists clench in the sheets. “The energy dissipated but now it— it smells quiet, but it’s not <em>right. </em>Like the calm before a storm. I don’t know. It’s stupid, but I swear I feel it in my teeth.”</p><p>Natalie gets migraines a lot. Before everything went to hell the first time, the strongest memories Lydia has of her mother involve her on the couch with the curtains drawn, listless no matter how much Lydia wanted to be with her, to tell her all the things she did and wanted to do at school.</p><p>Natalie couldn’t always give Lydia what she needed. It was hard not to feel abandoned and even harder to curb the resentment that had grown into something malignant by the time she was a freshman.  </p><p>But then Lydia started getting the migraines too, more and more frequently after her period started and then persisting for those horrible months even when it became irregular before stopping completely. The worst of headaches would last days at a time, long hours where that Lydia spent absent from school, tucked away in her bed under the oppressive shadow of blackout curtains that were useless against the throbbing deep her brain. Long weekends lost where she laid there with earplugs jammed in her ears in to drown out all the noise that seemed to be reverberating from within her skull and regretting every bit of the bitterness she felt toward her mother’s inability to be present.</p><p>The headaches at their worst always felt dull and throbbing, like there was something alive in her skull that was trying to burrow its way to the center. But they always started low, an undulating pressure in her jaw that made her teeth throb so hard it hurt to close her jaw with the wrongness of it all. Most of the time she didn't even notice something was wrong until it was too late to take her medication.</p><p>The tooth pain was its own kind of torture, but it always <em>always </em>meant something worse was coming.</p><p>And her migraines: they stopped after the—after Peter.</p><p>Swallowing hard, Lydia pushes through the desire to tell Cora that it’s just the stress of every unnatural disaster making her paranoid, or more paranoid than she already was. To shut out the girl that wants to clap her hands over her ears and scream until someone finally saves her. </p><p>But then—how many times have her own concerns been written off? How many times had she been discounted and patronized this year alone? Or was convinced that her experiences were wrong, or worse—not real? </p><p>Cora is just a teenager, and for some reason, she’s choosing to put her trust in<em> her </em>of all people. And after a year of being brushed off and ignored and deprived of answers that were <em>right there </em>when her life was spiralling out of control? That's not nothing, not to Lydia. She refuses to ruin it.</p><p>“Energy can’t be created or destroyed." She says slowly, deliberately. "It can only be transformed from one form to another.” Lydia recalls the diagram in an old physics textbook, a ball tossed overhead, its potential energy climbing higher and higher until reaching its peak, frozen for a fraction of a second. Right before giving way to the kinetic energy in the descent.</p><p>“Maybe… maybe they set something in motion.” Fear clenches deep in her gut and fuck it, her therapist was wrong, there’s nothing brave about facing her fears. Nothing. Lydia doesn’t feel better. She just feels sick. And that’s just it, isn’t it? Her entire life— everything she’s worked for, the amount of time and energy she wasted just to be <em>normal</em>—</p><p>She is always going to end up back here, right back where she began. Always waiting for the other shoe to drop. </p><p>Cora releases a wet little noise. Lydia shuts her eyes and hopes.</p><hr/><p>“Do you know anything about banshees?”</p><p>It’s just a whisper of a question, aimed at the popcorn texture of her ceiling. A glimpse down the precipice of knowing and loud enough to be an attempt to recant the iron tight control she had on her life. Soft enough to blunt the ache of a plea unanswered. Enough to say she tried. Enough to protect her from the truth. </p><p>Cora is so still, so silent next to her that it makes Lydia exhale, grateful and crestfallen all at once. And then—</p><p>“<em>Weaned by the dwellers of the tomb, beware the red babe’s wail.</em>” Cora murmurs, a lyrical quality to her voice that’s too soft for her countenance, like she’s reciting something she was told long, long ago; an echo of the girl she used to be. Lydia thinks, she <em>knows</em>, that she’s seeing that girl through the cracks of her armour. She’s seen her before too, in the genuine desire to help hidden behind the earnestness of her stupid questions. In the conscience breaking through a bad attitude and poor impulse control in the attempt to save the lives of people she shouldn't give a shit about.</p><p>Lydia is enthralled, and she has been from the start. She desperately wants to coax that girl out. Wants to see her flourish.</p><p>“I don’t know what that means,” Lydia whispers back, but somehow her voice is too loud, too high pitched and sharp against the creek of the wind outside. </p><p>“Banshees are descendants of the fae.” Cora explains, rolling over to look at her with a hand tucked beneath her pillow. She isn’t crowding into Lydia’s space, but she feels so much closer than she was before. “But... I don’t know what that means for you.”</p><p>Helpful</p><p>Cora rolls her eyes at her bitchy expression, but she shifts a little, settling deeper in the pillow. “What does it feel like? When you scream.”</p><p>Lydia stills, shaken by the sheer audacity of the question. It’s laughable, absolutely hilarious in the worst way. That this is the first time someone has taken the time to ask her about the rot in her soul as if it would be something Lydia could control. This entire time, screaming was a thing that <em>happened </em>to her. It was a miasma that built up the dead space of her lungs, a pressure she couldn’t alleviate until it exploded out of her throat, her chest.</p><p>There’s a sick sort of hysteria growing in her gut. Every single aspect in her life is falling apart; from her carefully cultivated façade to every unknown and repressed part of her identity. And Cora Hale wants to know what it <em>feels </em>like.</p><p>Lydia closes her eyes. “Like something scraped out everything inside me. I feel empty after. Raw."</p><p>Her fingers flex again. Lydia’s heart pounds. “It hurts.” She whispers, and it’s not entirely accurate but Lydia doesn’t know how else to explain the how hollowed out she feels when it’s over. Like a piece of her soul breaks off every time the thing inside her it lets loose.</p><p>“Your scent changed, in my brother’s loft. I can’t really explain it, but something changed. It hasn’t changed back, either, and I don’t know what that means. If I could see your aura I could tell you, but I’m not that good at it. Derek was always better at that stuff.” Cora whispers. She isn't quite looking at her, eyes fixed somewhere around Lydia's collarbone. </p><p>That’s a joke. “Derek is not going to do me any favours.”</p><p>But Cora disagrees, apparently. “He might if I ask.”</p><p>There she is again, that girl from before, unmooring Lydia bit by bit.</p><p>“Why are you doing this?” Lydia whispers.</p><p>Cora is silent for a long, long time, and the only sounds in the room are her breathing. “It’s not supposed to be like this.” Cora whispers into space between their lips. “You’re just,” her eyes close like she’s in pain, mouth twisting down into a frown. “You’re not a stupid teenager.”</p><p>Lydia wants to cry because Cora is <em>lying </em>to her and she can’t handle that right now. Cora was right, back in the locker room. They <em>are </em>stupid teenagers and what’s the point of being a death omen if she can’t do anything about it? How is Lydia supposed to live with that sword hanging over her head?</p><p>She doesn’t realize how hard she’s shaking her head until Cora drags her body into hers, pulls Lydia’s head into the hollow of her neck and strokes her hair while Lydia cries. </p><p>Cora holds her close, lets Lydia sob into the crook of her neck until her eyes ache and soul settles some. Cards her fingers through her hair and strokes a hand over back, soothing the tremors wracking her spine. She doesn’t say anything other than shushing her every now and then.</p><p>And somehow, it’s exactly what Lydia needs.</p><hr/><p>“What changed? About my scent, I mean.”</p><p>Lydia doesn’t know how much time has passed. The moon hangs high in the sky, casting her room in its pale, white light. Cora didn’t let her go after her sobs tapered off and at some point, Lydia tangled their legs together. She rests her forehead on the girl’s collarbone with an arm slung around her waist and high up her back. Cora’s been trailing her fingertips over Lydia’s back in slow arcs, an unexpectedly tender movement that breaks her skin out in goosebumps. Lydia loves cuddling but here, covered by the blanket night sky and in the safety of her bedroom, it’s easy to admit that cuddling has never felt quite like this before.</p><p>“It’s like—there are different parts of a person’s scent, right? The base scent, so human for you. Your top scent, which is like, a combination of your perfume and your soap and your moisturizer; stuff like that. Things you use so often that it leaves an imprint on your skin or in your hair. Your top scent is like. It's very feminine. Lavender and honey, from your shampoo and conditioner, I think. Shea butter, from your lotion. It’s—I like it.”</p><p>Cora buries her nose in her hair, mostly dry by now, and inhales deeply. Lydia sighs.</p><p>“It’s your core scent that changed,” continues Cora decisively. “Your core scent is— you. Who you are with all the qualifiers stripped away. The species and the stuff you decorate it with.</p><p>“Before, there was this—” her hand lifts from her back, the arm shifting like she’s gesturing without even without the audience. “Like the scent of overturned earth and pennies.” Another inhale. “Decay, but like autumn leaves, not rot,” sighs Cora, eyes closed like she’s lost in it. “It’s good. I like it.”</p><p>Lydia would take that as a strange compliment any other time, but she can’t— Cora thinks she smells like a grave. Lydia smells like a grave. And Cora is the girl that pulled herself out of her family's ashes. Cora Hale, presumed dead, tucking herself into the arms of a girl that was buried. God.</p><p>The last traces of tension leach out of her body, and it's easy, so easy to just <em>relax </em>against the solidity of Cora, as close as possible like she can crawl into her chest and curl up somewhere between her lungs, safe and sound. It’s even easier to press her lips to the warm skin of Cora’s neck.   </p><p>Cora’s breath stutters on the next exhale and belatedly, Lydia recognizes the gauntlet she just threw down. She should be scared, but for the first time in as long as she can remember, she isn’t.</p><p>She’s expecting it, when Cora shifts her weight, moving down the mattress so she can look Lydia in the eye. Her eyes are wide and her cheekbones are sharp in the moonlight. She’s beautiful.</p><p>“Am I reading this right?” Cora whispers, her voice cracked right down the middle, all her vulnerable parts exposed to ruin.</p><p>“You can’t smell it?” Aiden used to make it a point to tell her that he could smell how much she wanted him, blind to the contemptuous eye roll she aimed at him. He was always so unmoved about it. So cocky and carefree that he slid right through Lydia’s defenses, surrounding her on all sides. It was probably a werewolf thing, so didn’t think too hard about it.</p><p>But Cora’s already shaking her head though and she’s close enough that Lydia could count her eyelashes if she wasn’t so transfixed on the pout of her lips. “That’s not how it works,” she whispers hurriedly, “people look happy and smell miserable all the time.” </p><p>And there’s that girl again, reaching and reaching and reaching.</p><p>Lydia melts, her entire face melting into an expression so soft and fond as she leans in even closer, brushes the tip of her nose over the point of Cora’s. The tip of her nose is cold, and Cora’s hand—the one not tucked between the pillow and Lydia’s shoulder—freezes on her hip.</p><p>“Can I kiss you?” Lydia asks through an eye-crinkling smile.</p><p>Cora smiles back, eyes crinkling and guileless. She drags leans in closer, drags her nose down the side of Lydia’s until their lips are a hair’s breadth apart. Continues with their game and says, “you have to ask?”</p><p>And then Cora kisses her and it just— lights Lydia up. She kisses her and it illuminates that festering dark that’s been growing in her chest since Lydia woke up at the pool side and the barely patched world cracked open in a horror story. </p><p>Lydia gasps, and then Cora’s tongue is there, stroking so softly against her own that sends sparks skittering up her spine and want pooling low in her belly. She presses up against her, breasts soft against hers and her small hands stroking over her ribs, reminding Lydia that she had hands too, and that she’s finally allowed to touch. </p><p>It’s easy to drag her hand over the contours of Cora’s body, those sharp hips that Lydia wants to press her lips against. Along the firm muscle of her flank trembling under her skittering touch. the slope of her breast through her shirt, her fingers ghosting over the curve of her lats and her thumb sweeping in the delicate crease underneath her that makes the girl gasp and arc into her touch, into Lydia’s body like she can crawl inside and never leave. </p><p>It’s a heady feeling; powerful, even though Lydia feels like she’s going to shake apart at any moment now. </p><p>She’s already wet between the thighs; has been getting there since the hands dragging over her body changed from something comforting to something—more. Every part of Lydia is strung tight with anticipation and somehow boneless with want.</p><p>“Can we just keep doing this for now?” Cora breathes and it’s intimate, so intimate it almost hurts. “I’ve never— I don’t want it to be like this, back here with—” She breaks off, but she’s still there, kissing down the line of Lydia’s jaw and her skin’s so smooth and soft. She won’t be able to go back after this. “Is that okay?”</p><p>“Yeah, yeah, of course,” she assures her, suddenly desperate to give Cora the reassurance of patience that she never got. She dips her head to capture Cora’s lips again in the same breath. She’s so soft everywhere and distantly she recognizes that between every boy she’s been with before, it’s never been like this. She’s never kissed someone for the sake of kissing them before. Never saw the point.</p><p>Until now.</p><hr/><p>“Are you sure?” Cora whispers later, breathless. At some point, Lydia followed the movement of Cora’s hands and ended up on top of her, one elbow pressed in the space between Cora and the headboard, the other propped down somewhere under her arm. Their legs are slotted together, Cora’s thigh pressed tight between the clutch of her thighs. It’s taking everything in her to stop her hips from rolling.</p><p>Lydia’s nosing that spot right behind Cora’s ear, panting hotly when Cora’s fingers curl over the back of her neck and into the hair when she finds her words.</p><p>“I’ve never done this before,” says Lydia, <em>‘with a girl’ </em>going unsaid because— because it’s important that Cora knows this. That they’re both on the same playing field here. She doesn't want to remind Cora of any of the other boys. She's the only one that matters now.</p><p>“But I want to. If you want to.” Panic grips her suddenly, freezing her. “You do, right? I can’t tell like you—”</p><p>Cora surges up, kissing her all firm and wet and dragging lips. “I do. Trust me, I do.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Lydia breathes, and then she’s sinking down over Cora’s body. She kisses her again and Lydia marvels at how <em>soft </em>she feels. Their cheeks brush and the lack of stubble there is intoxicating, and she can’t get close enough.</p><p>Cora’s hands have been roving over her back, slipping over he ass and down her thighs in a way that makes Lydia’s hips stutter hard against the firm muscle spreading her legs. Eventually, Cora slips her hands just barely underneath the fabric of her shirt, tickling lightly on her hips. Lydia’s heart seizes in her chest.</p><p>“Do you wanna take this off?”</p><p>Lydia says yes reflexively, absolutely zero input from her brain because it’s a request that she has never denied before. Too late, she thinks about the imprint Peter’s fangs left on her flank, how poorly the scar healed over because she kept tearing the stitches out during last year's meltdowns. Or how the <em>Pasteurella </em>infection pushed her broken body to the brink. Lydia doesn’t—she can’t be naked around Cora. She can’t.</p><p>“Lydia?” Cora pulls back to look at her and Lydia cracks right down the centre<em>. </em>She shakes her head no and Cora’s fingers pull away from her skin, but she’s still there, invading her space and capturing her lips all over again. Says, “yeah, yeah—that’s fine.”</p><p>God, Lydia <em>wants.</em></p><p>She rolls her hips down at the same time Cora flexes her knee up and that’s—Lydia gasps, spreads her legs wider until she can grind her clit up against Cora’s thigh, nothing but the heat of each other between them. They’re anchored so tightly together, locked from lips to hips, blurring their ends and beginnings. Her heart is beating so hard in her that it echoes in her ears but not enough to drown out Cora’s panting breaths when their kiss devolves into their lips brushing, breathing fever-hot against each other.</p><p>“How do you usually get off?” Cora whispers against her throat.</p><p>Stomach swooping, Lydia shakes her head, reaching for another kiss, long and dirty, but then she's distracted. She leans her weight in her forearms, caging Cora between them so she can get the leverage she needs to—</p><p>“Fuck,” Lydia can’t believe that’s her voice—low and raspy and so unlike the way she tries to sound during sex. “Just—gimme something to ride.”</p><p>Cora moans out a curse, higher pitched than Lydia would have expected but it’s—the sound seeps into her skin, her bones. Sets her alight and Lydia feels dizzy, can’t remember <em>ever </em>being this wet, all slick and sloppy between the legs.</p><p>It strikes like lightning, the image of Lydia crawling up Cora’s body flooding her mind, her senses. Of pressing her swollen clit to those life-ruining lips in a kiss, the press of her thighs around soft cheeks, and just— <em>using</em> her until Lydia comes and slicks Cora’s mouth with wet.</p><p>It makes her hot, makes her break out in a sweat, feverish. Makes her want to <em>fuck</em>. She moans, hands slipping into Cora’s hair and clenching into fists around the strands, pulling tighter when Cora groans low in her throat.</p><p>From the way Cora has her head thrown back, her hands gripping Lydia’s ass so tight and hot, pulling her onto firm flex of her thigh, right where Lydia wants her most is—she might not be opposed to the idea.</p><p>It’s so easy to lose herself in the roll of her hips, the hot friction against her clit. God, it’s almost too much, like she’s too big for her skin and she can’t stop <em>moving</em>. Cora’s mouthing at her neck now, hot biting, <em>sucking</em> kisses, and fuck she’s so <em>smooth</em>—</p><p>That sharp realization—that Lydia has a girl underneath her, writhing as hard as she is and rolling up into her space like she never wants to leave; her high-pitched moans and gasping breaths hot in her ear sink into her skin, her bones, putting the roots in her mind that this— <em>this</em> is something that Lydia can <em>have.</em></p><p>That she doesn’t like guys the way she wanted to, the way that broken girl that she rebuilt from the ground up was <em>supposed</em> to.</p><p>Cora turns her head to crush her mouth against Lydia’s all tongue and firm pressed lips against hers. She grinds her hips faster, hard feeling her orgasm building deep in deep her core, radiating outwards and she’s panting, face tucked safely away in the hollow of Cora’s neck. Lydia’s tense enough to snap in two—her calves are cramping and she should flex them but she can’t <em>stop—</em></p><p>“Cora—” Lydia gasps, and yes, that wrecked trembling thing <em>is </em>her voice, isn’t it? “<em>Cora.”</em></p><p>“Yeah, come on,” Cora grunts, and then her arms are around her, one hand winding up her back closing around the back of her neck and the other curling over one ass cheek and <em>grabbing</em>, pulling her even closer, impossibly closer.</p><p>Their lips come back together in a not-kiss—just breathing against each other again but this time it’s so fervently <em>intimate </em>that it pushes Lydia over the edge. The cry that tears out of her is long and broken; her hips twitching on their own, chasing those last few waves. Her calves are sore, her whole <em>body is</em> sore, and Lydia has <em>never </em>come so hard in her life. And that was without anything inside her. Fuck.</p><p>Lydia breathes, flexing her feet to un-cramp her legs before shifting to settle comfortable in a sprawl between Cora’s legs. Cora presses her lips to Lydia’s temple and slips her fingers through sweat-damp hair while she catches her breath.</p><p>“You’re really hot,” Cora says after a moment. And Lydia laughs, a foreign airy thing that has her grinning hard and helpless.</p><p>Slowly, she realizes that Cora’s breathes are still coming out too hard—that her hips are still twitching minutely against Lydia’s and it gives Lydia the second wind she needs to kick her sheets aside and roll them over until Cora’s settled comfortable on top of her with her hips bracketed between Cora’s legs.</p><p>Cora looks <em>wrecked</em>. Her pupils are blown and her baby hairs are slick against her temples with sweat. Her lips are split open in a grin—raw and bitten from Lydia’s kisses. There’s something like wonder written on her face.</p><p>Lydia did that. She’s the reason Cora <em>looks</em> like that.</p><p>She slips a hand up the girl’s thigh, resting lightly, but intently at her waistline, stroking over the band of her shorts. It’s slightly slick with sweat and that has always, <em>always</em> been a point of disgust for her but Cora still smells so <em>good</em>—like herself but muskier but somehow so <em>sweet</em>. She feels drugged.</p><p>“Can I?” She asks lightly, grinning when Cora’s eyes flutter close as she strokes her thumb over her skin—so soft, so fucking <em>soft</em>.</p><p>Cora’s head comes to rest on her shoulder, like she can’t hold herself up anymore, even though her elbows and legs are comfortably keeping her weight mostly off Lydia’s body. Her hips shift, arching back a little to give Lydia some room.</p><p>“Just go slow?” Cora asks quietly, so quietly, shy all of a sudden and—Lydia gets it, she <em>does.</em> She wants to be the one to give this to Cora, wants more than anything to make it as good for her as it was for Lydia.</p><p>Lydia tries to relax, tries to focus on something other than <em>hot girl sprawled all over her</em> and slips her hand into the elastic waistband of Cora’s shorts, stroking her fingers lightly over the hair on her mound. She isn’t wearing any underwear which—yeah. Sharing clothes is one thing, but Lydia can’t imagine Cora with her sense of smell being comfortable with panties that weren’t her own.</p><p>All the more reason for Lydia to navigate carefully, with the care and consideration she didn’t get as a freshman.</p><p>The angle’s a little strange; her wrist isn’t that flexible and through the haze of want clouding her thoughts, it feels like reversing the muscle memory of braiding her own hair to plait someone else’s. Lydia doesn’t touch herself often, can usually make do hands-free with the body pillow she sleeps curled around at night, so this is new—<em>exciting</em>. Cora relaxes slightly now, and Lydia can feel her panting against her neck. She slips her hand a little further, skirting the crease of her thigh to get Cora used to her touch and—<em>fuck.</em></p><p>“You’re so wet,” Lydia blurts, struck dumb with lust when her fingers slip over the wet of her smeared all over Cora’s inner thighs. The urge to <em>taste </em>hits her all at once, wanting nothing more than to slip down and fold her lips over Cora’s clit and <em>suck</em>.</p><p>Cora’s next breath whimpers out of her, the sound so ruined and vulnerable that Lydia moans back unbidden.</p><p>“Please,” Cora begs, “<em>please</em>, touch me.”</p><p>“Yeah, okay.” Lydia says dumbly, and then she’s moving her fingers but—she can’t help herself, she needs to feel it, needs it like breathing.</p><p>Her fingers slip lower down, to where Cora’s soaking wet. She doesn’t want in—not yet, she doesn’t know if Cora wants that, but she skates just the tips of her fingers over her hole, wetting them. Her breath stutters hard when Cora clenches tight, choking on a gasp as she rocks her hips down hard.</p><p>“That feels really good,” Cora stutters out and her hips roll once, spreading her legs but hobbled by her shorts, like she wants to get Lydia closer. “But I need—<em>I need—</em>”</p><p>She cuts off abruptly, like the words are stuck in her throat and Lydia—she can read between the lines. She adjusts Cora so she’s in a proper sprawl over her, curls a hand over the crook of one knee and pulls it up higher, opening the girl up for her and—fuck, it makes Cora moan and that turns Lydia on, <em>so much</em>, holy hell.</p><p>Lydia inhales deeply, tries to centre herself so she can focus. Adjusting her wrist, she skates her fingers over Cora’s hole once more, just to gather some more of that slick before she’s dragging her fingers back up to where her clit should be and—</p><p>Cora grinds down <em>hard, </em>moaning close enough to Lydia’s ear that she feels it deep in her bones. Lydia slips another hand down over the curve of those too sharp hips, trying to still her.</p><p>“Let me,” Lydia breathes, “just—let me. I got you.”</p><p>She feels Cora nod her head too many times, like she’s trying to convince her self or something. Feels her tremble when she tries to still the cadence of her hips from rocking out of the rhythm Lydia is trying to establish, thumbing little circles over Cora’s thigh until the tremors cease.</p><p>Slowly, Lydia starts slipping her fingers over Cora’s clit, swollen beneath her fingers. She tries slipping her the pad over her thumb over it but the angle is too awkward and Cora’s still panting, still pulled taut but—it isn’t enough. On a whim, Lydia bends the joint of her thumb, slip-sliding the front of the knuckle just above her nail over that swollen little nub.</p><p>Cora gasps. Lydia grins, something base and <em>pleased </em>rising in her.</p><p>It’s easier now, knuckling against Cora’s clit—the movement is locked by the range of her thumb but it’s good because she doesn’t have to think too hard about staying consistent. Cora moans a little on each breath, flips her hair once over her shoulder and pants like she can’t get enough oxygen in her system. Lydia can’t see her hands, but she pictures them clenched tight in her sheets. The hand Lydia has on her knee is up in a second, sweeping sweat-slick strands of hair out of her face. Her heart clenches tight in her chest when she pulls back to see how wrecked Cora looks above her. </p><p>It takes Lydia another moment realize that her breathless little moans are words—that Cora is begging, saying “please, please, please—” over and over again and Lydia—is going to <em>fall apart</em>.</p><p>She’s so out of it that she doesn’t realize right away when Cora comes, too absorbed in the way she throws her head back, exposing the soft underside of her throat to Lydia lying beneath her. Her thighs are quivering where they’re squeezing tight around Lydia’s hips and now that she’s paying attention, Lydia flips her hand over, just to—hold her or something.</p><p>Lydia can feel the throb of Cora’s heartbeat against her fingertips, and that’s—she can’t help but stroke her a little until Cora clumsily bats her hand away from her, oversensitive and whining, and then she’s dropping the entirety of her weight on her. She really doesn’t understand how people pull off faking orgasms as often as they do.  </p><p>“Holy fuck.” Cora gasps after a moment.</p><p>Lydia laughs so hard that she snorts.</p><hr/><p>Dawn has barely broken when Cora shakes her awake.</p><p>“I have to go.” Cora breathes, like it physically hurts her to get the words out. She rubs the top of her chest again absently. “I—Derek’s calling me.”</p><p>The words hit like bucket of ice water over her head, dumping her back into reality too quickly, too vividly. She feels hollow.</p><p>“Yeah,” Lydia says woodenly, swallowing hard around the lump in her throat. She unwinds her arms from around Cora’s body, rolling on her back and rapidly blinking away the tears welling up in her eyes. “No, of course.”</p><p>Lydia knows what this means—she knows that Derek and Cora were on their way out of this place before she unwittingly called them back. She knew how this was going to end. Lydia just… didn’t realize how attached she’d gotten. How viscerally it was going to hurt.</p><p>Her eyes shut and then Lydia’s rolling slightly under a new dip in the mattress. There’s light pressure on her forehead, the lingering tremble of chapped lips.</p><p>“I don’t want to leave.” Cora whispers, soft and secret.</p><p>Lydia brings a hand up to Cora’s cheek, pressing her forehead against hers so softly. Just for a moment.</p><hr/><p>It’s not until Lydia is standing in her shower and staring vacantly at the wall, embraced by the rich smell of lavender and the steady stream of too-hot water reddening her skin that she wonders if it was all a dream.</p><p>She wishes it was. It probably would have hurt less. But more than all those things, Lydia wishes that she had left well enough alone.</p><p>Lydia presses her forehead against the tile and fights to breathe around the emptiness in her heart.</p><hr/><p>“Hey.”</p><p>It’s bright out, not unusually so, but enough that it makes Lydia squint while she waits for her eyes to adjust. She can’t make herself look at Cora yet—she knows what this visit means, she’s not an idiot, but when she peers over her shoulder she can see Derek in the driver’s seat of his car. He tips his head at her in greeting. Lydia ignores him.</p><p>She wonders if he can hear how hard her heart is pounding behind her ribs.  </p><p>“Hi.”</p><p>The thing is, Lydia wants to fill the space. She wants to talk, fight with her, with this beautiful girl standing on her porch about to leave her. </p><p>She wants to beg her to stay, but the last vestiges of her dignity clot the words in her throat.  </p><p>Cora stops fidgeting after what feels like an eternity. Lydia earns the privilege of watching her turn around and glare or whisper or do <em>something</em> at Derek Hale that makes him roll his eyes—roll his entire upper body, Lydia notices with some amusement— and cram a pair of headphones in his ears while rolling up the window. </p><p>Subtle. </p><p>“We’re leaving.” Cora finally admits. Blunt, which is the Cora of old. The gentleness is new.</p><p>“I know.” Lydia says slowly. She’s being a bitch and she knows it. But this girl—this girl went and dug her way under Lydia’s skin, taught her a language Lydia couldn’t speak with anyone else.</p><p>And now she’s leaving her behind.  </p><p>“It’ll be fine.”</p><p>Cora face cracks open, eyes wide and eyebrows high. “You’re lying,” she says, and she looks so helpless and Lydia <em>aches. </em></p><p>But still. “Of <em>course,</em> I’m lying, you moron. Isn’t there some kind of etiquette about that?”</p><p>Lydia looks up at the ceiling of her porch, to blink away the water welling in her eyes, but also because she can’t look at Cora when she admits this.</p><p>“You— you’re—” Essential. Integral. Vital. “You <em>matter</em>. To me.”</p><p>Lydia grits her teeth, pins Cora with her gaze and juts her chin out stubbornly. “I am going to <em>make </em>it fine, alright?” </p><p>“Lydia—”</p><p>“Go.” Lydia says, watery, laughing helplessly, going for broke and reeling Cora in for a kiss like because—because this is the last time and she can’t <em>help herself</em>. “Get the hell out of this place.”</p><p>“You too.” Cora whispers, kisses her again and again, little pecks that taste like salt, like she can’t help herself either. Her strokes the narrow tip of her nose over Lydia’s and laughs wetly. “It’s not supposed to be like this. You deserve better.”</p><p>And then she’s pulling away, and Lydia drags her in for one more firm, lingering kiss before shoving her off with a laugh, watches her dart down the driveway and slipping into the passenger’s seat. He graces her with a smile, a real one that crinkles the corners of his eyes—just like Cora. She’s genuinely surprised at how boyishly handsome he looks. Lydia smiles back, nods her head at him. </p><p>As he pulls out of the driveway and swings into the road, she catches Cora’s eyes through the window, something rueful etched on her face.</p><p>Lydia stands right where she left her, hand left hanging in the air until the both of them are out of sight.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>anyway cora’s pov would be titled after <i>tis the damn season</i>. concrit welcome, and please let me know what i missed during editing.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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